nothing to fear
by McMuffin
Summary: It's not fair, it's not right, it's not making her feel any better. / Addison tells Kevin about kissing Wyatt the night that the deed happens.


_So this fic has bugged at me since I first saw this scene, and finally after months, I wrote it. haha. hope y'all like it._

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Mistakes are necessary to learn from, to move forward, to grow. They help us heal, move forward, become better people. But all mistakes are destructive in some way, shape or form.

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Her keys jingle in nervous hands before she sets them down on the bench to ease the clangy metallic sound. Her handbag falls down next to them with a dull thud, akin to the thud of her heart, before she calls out.

"Kevin?"

She gulps down the waves of guilt as she hears him shout, "Out here." from the patio. This could turn out in two ways, amazing or horrible. She's trying to scrape her thoughts together into a readable map before she begins what is necessary. There's an (almost) perfect man outside on the wood, one she previously thought of as perfect, but that was a shattered illusion woven by the cloud of lust and blossoming romance, she now remembers her cynical views on perfection. Views which, unfortunately, tell her that perfection will be ruined and never retrievable once she spills her faults.

She wobbles in her heels as she heads outside, and she hates how gut-wrenchingly bad she feels for the little thing she did. Although it's not really little. She keeps feeding herself lies about kisses not classifying as cheating, but they are lies, and kisses are cheating. Her heart is like glass, able to shatter at any moment from the stress of this, and now that she can see his silhouette on the edge of the grains of pre-glass, she wants to physically throw up. She slides out of her heels and pads over to her boyfriend.

"Hey," she says softly, her voice merging with the crashing of the waves.

He jumps a little and turns counter-clockwise to face her. "Hey. I was expecting louder noises from your heels," he chuckles.

She barely upturns her lips as he leans into kiss her cheek softly.

"How was your day?" he asks.

She lifts and drops her shoulders. "Not good." She needs to tell him before the feeling gets worse, but she can't bear to hurt him, she cares for him too much. It might be love, but admitting that would open a tonne of rocks she'd prefer to leave steady, rather than fall like an avalanche into her mind. Admitting she loves him right now would send her to a psych institute. This is hard enough to deal with on its own.

"Want a beer?" He senses not to push any further with the issue.

She shakes her head and slides down to sit on the edge of the patio. He soon follows and she leans her head in his lap, as he strokes her hair with a frown. Lying eases her nausea, but doesn't ease the guilt, nor cull the confusion and concern he's feeling.

"Are you sure you're okay, baby?" he whispers so softly his voice fights the air for power.

She sits up and shakes her head, red strands catching the moonlight, biting on her lip so hard she almost draws blood. He sees her eyes watering and starts to freak out about how bad her day was.

"Addison... you're worrying me."

She takes a moment to calm herself. Barely.

"I need to talk to you about something."

"I'm all ears." He squeezes her hand reassuringly, but his instinct informs him that he's soon to be the one needing reassurance.

She gulps. "I need you to stay... to not butt in, or... just hear the whole thing, please?"

"Okay..." That well known sinking feeling stirs in his gut.

"So, um, things between us haven't been all that great lately... and then at work, there's..." The tension on her hand is getting stronger, and she forces herself to say it. "I kissed another man."

He clenches his jaw together. "When?"

"An hour ago..." A tremor rips through her lower jaw. "I thought it would make me feel better, ease everything... but, it just made me feel sick. I feel sick by what I did, Kev." He can't, or won't, look at her so she continues to ramble.

"I feel horrible for doing that to you, because I've learnt that despite how we always seem to clash over every issue these days, I'm not ready to end things with you." He looks up and holds her gaze, his eyes probing hers for answers, an explanation, anything. "We can get past all of this... crap. These stupid arguments about everything. I know we can," she says firmly.

His jaw slowly unclenches to a point where the tension won't break bone.

"I'm not saying I'm not mad, because I am. But I'm glad you told me, Addie," he sighs. "I think I should move out. We'll work things out, I just... we need more time to ourselves."

He reaches up to wipe a lost tear from her cheek, then kisses the aforementioned area. She watches as he slowly rises and goes inside what is likely to become _her_ home (not their), and she sips at his half empty beer while he packs up his stuff.

It's not fair, it's not right, it's not making her feel any better. But it is. The pain reveals how deeply she cares for him, and it is fair, she cheated, emotionally, she needs to be punished. But then, so does he. They're two pieces of the puzzle, currently they sit on opposite sides of the picture, but there's hope that they'll move together again, slowly.

She walks back inside minutes after she hears his car pull out of the driveway, wanting to be sure he was completely gone, as any glance of his body would surely send her into spasm. As she reaches her kitchen, the answering machine of her home phone flashes a red '1'. She missed the call whilst wallowing, and she groans, hoping to god it's not Wyatt. She hits play.

"Eight PM, tomorrow night. Dress casual, we're going go kartin'."

Mistakes rarely repair things that are broken.


End file.
